Texas Site Fight: The Calm Before The Storm?

Wal-Mart Truce - The Calm Before The Storm? [XKAN-TV News, Texas]

When word got out late last fall that the city of Austin had approved a site plan at a North Austin mall that included a Wal-Mart store, it didn’t take long for an organization called Responsible Growth for Northcross to get off the ground.

“We started with, I think, six people in a coffee shop, and within two days, it was a dozen people at somebody’s house, and within two weeks, we had several hundred people in a church,” said Hope Morrison, president for Responsible Growth for Northcross, also called RG4N.

Lincoln Properties has city approval for the Wal-Mart construction at Northcross Mall, which sits at Burnet Road and Anderson Lane, but neighborhood groups joined to stop the project with a lawsuit.

“When it was announced that it would be a two-story Wal-Mart with a three-story parking garage, the gasps in the audience, ‘What! What’s that?’” said Jason Meeker, RG4N communications chairman. “And that’s just where it all started.”

Lawyers for both sides agreed this week to a temporary suspension of demolition at the Wal-Mart site to preserve, for now, most of the trees on the property and to a schedule what would put the issue in court for trial by mid-November.

Critics complained the City Council deals with issues piecemeal: Where to put the animal shelter, where to put a water treatment plant, what to do about affordable housing and about iconic businesses that get displaced by high-profile development projects.

They said Austin needs a council that looks at all those issues with a comprehensive understanding of what its citizens really want.

“Either one of you thinking about a run for City Council?” asked KXAN Austin News’ Jim Swift.

“Yeah, I’m thinking about it,” Meeker said. “I have to give it a lot of deep, hard thought.”

One thing is beyond the thinking stage: A group of activists meets every weekend to map strategy for City Council elections in May 2008 and 2009.

“We are seeing a groundswell,” Morrison said. “We’re hearing the same notes from a lot of different bands around town, so to speak.”

Meanwhile, the lull in the Wal-Mart fight ends with a court setting Nov. 13.

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, August 17, 2007

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